1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus incorporated with the cartridge mounting mechanism.
2. Related Art
Recording apparatuses thus far developed that perform a recording operation on a medium with a recording material include an ink jet printer (hereinafter, simply “printer”). The printer ejects a liquid, an example of the recording material, from a recording head to the medium thereby performing the recording operation. Among the printers thus designed, those that employ an ink cartridge containing ink, an example of the liquid, to be replaced for recharging the ink generally include a cartridge holder on which the ink cartridge can be removably mounted.
Some of the existing cartridge holders include a cartridge inlet formed as an opening directed upward at the upper edge of the chamber in which the ink cartridge is set, and a lever that serves as the lid that covers the cartridge inlet. The lever is opened and closed thus to open and close the cartridge inlet, and when the lever is in the closed position the ink cartridge is depressed by the lever in the mounting direction, and thus restricted from wobbling (for example, see International Publication No. WO 1999/059823).
However, the lever has to be operated each time the ink cartridge is mounted or removed, and hence the operation often becomes troublesome especially when a plurality of ink cartridges have to be mounted or removed.
Further, the mentioned drawback is incidental not only to the cartridge holder and the printer incorporated with the cartridge holder, but broadly to cartridge mounting mechanisms in which cartridges containing a recording material are removably mounted and recording apparatuses incorporated with the cartridge mounting mechanism.